Safety at NextClub

1. Age and guardian rules

• Under 13: a parent/guardian manages the player's presence and communication. Children under 13 are not intended to operate their own account.
• Ages 13–17: a player account requires parent/guardian consent and an adult guardian link before full posting or messaging participation.
• 18+: adult rules apply.
• Club/coach accounts: adults only, with platform verification before contacting youth player listings.

2. Public youth privacy

Youth listings use initials publicly and are designed around soccer-relevant details such as age group, general city/state, level, position, and notes. Full date of birth, account email, and guardian contact information are not shown on the public roster board.

NextClub also applies server-side checks intended to prevent youth listing notes from publishing phone numbers, email addresses, social-media handles, website/contact links, exact street addresses, school-identifying information, dates of birth, or similar personal information. Existing notes detected as containing protected contact information may be hidden from public display.

3. Email and club verification

New accounts may be required to verify control of their email address. Club/coach accounts also undergo platform review before youth contact features are enabled. Verification reduces risk but is not a guarantee of identity, credentials, background-check status, or future conduct.

4. Messaging safeguards

Messaging is text-only. The platform does not support user photo, video, or file attachments in the current version. Adults may not pressure minors to disclose private contact/location details, send inappropriate images, keep communication secret, or move communication away from guardian oversight.

5. Guardian visibility

When a linked teen account is involved, the linked adult guardian can view conversations. For younger children, the parent/guardian account is intended to handle the listing and messaging directly.

6. Context-aware automated safety alerts

NextClub can review current and recent conversation context for combinations of language associated with grooming, sexual content, secrecy, inappropriate image requests, gifts or money, private meetings, hotels/private rooms, personal home/school location, or pressure to move a minor off-platform. This helps identify concerning patterns that may be split across several messages.

Automated alerts are risk signals rather than automatic findings of wrongdoing. Normal soccer-related communication can sometimes contain words that resemble a safety pattern, so authorized human review remains important.

7. Automatic chat holds

Critical safety indicators involving a minor can automatically pause a conversation while an authorized administrator reviews it. A hold is a protective action, not a final determination that misconduct occurred.

8. Human Safety Center

Authorized administrators can review flagged chats, user reports, verification information, and safeguarding cases. Admin access may be recorded in audit/security logs. Serious cases may be preserved and escalated under the operator's incident-response and legal-reporting procedures.

9. NextClub Support participation

Authorized administrators may contact users or participate in an existing conversation under a clearly labeled NextClub Support identity for support, safety, moderation, or account-security reasons. Support messages are distinguishable from ordinary user messages, and administrative activity may be logged.

10. Reporting and blocking

Users can report inappropriate conduct and block another account. A block is intended to stop further direct conversation between the affected parties. Reports enter an administrator review process. Users should not continue an unsafe conversation merely to gather more evidence.

11. Spam and abuse controls

NextClub applies rate limits and other controls to repeated login attempts, registrations, password-reset requests, verification emails, messages, reports, conversations, and listing activity. These controls are intended to reduce spam, credential attacks, harassment, and automated abuse.

12. Account and administrator security

NextClub uses email verification, password hashing, secure password reset, session expiration, administrator multi-factor authentication, shorter administrator sessions, rate limiting, security-event monitoring, restricted access to sensitive exports, and audit logging. Sensitive administrator exports may require recent MFA authentication.

13. Safer offline connections

Parents and clubs should use normal youth-sport safeguarding practices after an introduction: parent awareness, public soccer venues, appropriate supervision, governing-body rules, background checks where required, and no secret or private adult-minor meetings. NextClub does not supervise offline tryouts, meetings, transportation, or other activities.

14. What parents should tell their child

• Keep conversations soccer-related.
• Never send intimate or inappropriate images.
• Do not agree to secret meetings or secret communication.
• Do not share a home address, school schedule, personal phone number, or private social-media account with someone you do not know and trust.
• Tell a parent/guardian immediately if a message feels uncomfortable or unusual.
• Use Report and Block rather than continuing an unsafe conversation.

15. Privacy and account deletion

Users can submit privacy requests, including account-deletion requests. Approved deletion is designed to deactivate and anonymize the account and remove ordinary associated data, while allowing information connected to an active safety investigation, legal obligation, fraud matter, or required audit record to be retained when reasonably necessary.

16. Immediate danger

NextClub is not an emergency service. If someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services or the appropriate law-enforcement or child-protection authority. Use NextClub's reporting tools for platform concerns, but do not delay emergency assistance while waiting for a platform response.

17. No safety system is perfect

Verification, age gates, automated detection, youth-listing privacy filters, parent visibility, rate limiting, administrator review, and account-security controls reduce risk; they cannot guarantee that every identity is genuine, every harmful message will be detected, or every offline interaction will be safe. Parents, guardians, clubs, and coaches remain responsible for appropriate real-world safeguarding.

18. Contact

Non-emergency safety questions may be sent to nextclubsoccer@gmail.com. Safety concerns involving a NextClub user should also be submitted through the in-platform reporting tools whenever possible.